Test GroupPolicy (*.admx templates) locally without AD

Abstract: If you wish to use GroupPolicy (*.admx templates) locally without AD (e.g. for testing or for PCs which do not an ad join) you can copy and use the files locally. The following steps are needed.

In this short howto we will use the Microsoft Office 2016 Administrative Template files (ADMX/ADML) on a local PC which do not have an AD join.

4.) open each language subforder in C:\temp\admx and copy the language files to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\ (e.g. normally C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\). If we use an English OS as example you will copy all C:\temp\admx\en-us *.adml to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\en-us (e.g. normally C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-us)